NPI Fundraiser

The Northwest Progressive Institute (NPI) has been a strong voice in the progressive activist community in the Northwest for over seven years. One of their early projects was a set of tools for progressive bloggers that enabled them to connect, share ideas and information, and disseminate their work. In past years, they have put together a number of influential workshops that brought bloggers together and put bloggers in touch with politicians (I’ve attended a number of them). NPI has also been a strong, consistent voice against Tim “Biggest Lie of my Life” Eyman’s abuse of the initiative process in Washington.

On Thursday, April 28th, NPI is holding its Spring Fundraising Gala at the Community Center at Mercer View, 82346 SE 24th Street on Mercer Island (map). The reception begins at 6:30 PM and the main program begins at 7:15 PM.

This is your chance to hang out with other folks in the progressive community over a buffet dinner. There will be music by Don Mock. Featured speakers are Rep. Jay Inslee, State Rep. Reuven Carlyle, Timothy Ford, Peter Steinbrueck, and Scott Macklin. And Bob Ferguson will be the Master of Ceremonies.

You can find information about tickets and whatnot on the NPI web page.

When there is a progressive initiative, the initiative process is democratic and a great device.

When there is an initiative that isnt progressive(like limiting the state from raping us for tax money), the initiative process is a failure and being taken over by corp interests and should be done away with.

@2: When there is a progressive initiative, it’s staffed by people who believe in the cause. When there’s an Eyman initiative, it’s bankrolled by one or two large out-of-state donors. That’s a hell of a difference–one is a grassroots movement, while the other is the wealthy buying the laws they want.

Anti-tax advocates contend that higher taxes on the wealthy lead to millionaire flight. They say this has been seen in Maryland, Rhode Island, New Jersey and New York. The rich are mobile, they say. They can take their money, taxes and jobs wherever they are treated best.

But a new study focusing on New Jersey provides some of the most detailed evidence yet that so-called millionaire taxes have little effect on the movements of millionaires as a whole.

The study, by sociologists Cristobal Young at Stanford and Charles Varner at Princeton, studied the migration patterns of New Jersey’s millionaires before and after 2004, when the state imposed a “millionaire’s tax” that raised rates on those earning $500,000 or more to 8.97% from 6.37%.

The study found that the overall population of millionaires increased during the tax period. Some millionaires moved out, of course. But they were more than offset by the creation of new millionaires.

The study dug deeper to figure out whether the millionaires who were moving out did so because of the tax. As a control group, they used New Jersey residents who earned $200,000 to $500,000–in other words, high-earners who weren’t subject to the tax. They found that the rate of out-migration among millionaires was in line with and rate of out-migration of submillionaires. The tax rate, they concluded, had no measurable impact.

“This suggests that the policy effect is close to zero,” the study says.

Of course, not all millionaires are the same, and some are more likely to leave than others. The study found that New Jersey millionaires over the age of 65 and who live off their investments are the most likely to leave. Among those who earned their money from investments, the tax raised migration rates by 27 people per thousand among the top 0.1% of earners.

Yet those who own their own businesses or earn their money in New York–groups that account for a large share of millionaires in New Jersey–are less likely to leave.

The study also found that New Jersey millionaire-earners are an ever-changing group, with people constantly moving on and off the top rung of the income ladder. Since there is no permanent top-earning class, the occasional top earners have less incentive to leave because of the tax.

“In summary, the new tax did not appreciably increase out-migration,” the study concluded.

Maybe this is why Ayn Rand’s gawd awful books have always and will always be found under fiction and unclassifiable in the the Dewey Decimal Classification.

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